Boosting patients safely

heron, ASN, RN · Sep 15

A CNA taught me to put the bed in reverse trendelenberg to make things easier. Watch for dyspnea in obese or chf patients.

JKL33 · Sep 17

You need some combination of 1) enough people and 2) assistive devices. There's no other way.

Having 2-3 people hurry up to a cluttered bedside, find a tiny grip on a draw sheet that is all catawampus under the patient and count to 3 while trying not to disturb IV poles, tables, computer, other equipment is a good way to get hurt or to wreck one's back over time. Get enough people (rightfully more than what's typical), move things away from the bed and move the bed away from the wall enough that everyone can get a good position, use slider sheets (the slippery things, not the just the draw sheet), put the HOB down or slightly trendelenburg, if you actually get enough people have someone stationed at the HOB; pulling toward oneself is so much easier than trying to move weight laterally at waist height. 😫

This is a serious issue. Hopefully newer generations of nurses will demand improvement here.

In the meantime, make sure you're keeping an eye out to help your coworkers when you see them about to move a patient or hear them asking for help. You can change the attitudes/practices on your unit to some extent just by talking about this more, helping coworkers and asking for help in return. Be an example. If someone asks you for help, say "Sure!--we need more than just us though, we need two more people, lets get [coworker A and coworker B] too. Everyone wants to be quick and they don't want to be bothered. But it's sooooo much easier once people get on board, and they will when they see that it can be easy and they don't feel like they strained themselves afterward.